Observational and Experimental Methods of Enquiry in Psychol

A principal wants to know how teachers feel about changes to their schedule. He decides to ask a sample of 20 teachers by randomly choosing 20 teachers from an alphabetical list of the 60 teachers in the school.

Which sampling method is he using?

• Cluster

• Systematic

• Convenience

• Random Assignment

A researcher asks students the average number of hours of sleep they get per night and examines whether the amount of sleep affects students’ grades.

Which method of enquiry will the researcher use to collect this type of data?

• Observational Method

• Experimental method

• Psychometric Testing

• Case Study

Experimental or Observational Study?

A park employee wants to know if latex paint is more durable than non-latex paint. She paints 50 benches with latex paint, and 50 with non-latex paint.

• Experimental Method

• Observational Study

Which is true about hypothesis?

• It may reject or accepts your prediction.

• It summarizes the result on the experiment.

• It is an educated guess or possible answer to the question.

• It is the final answer to the question.

Maria wants to know if tomato seed grows faster than a monggo seed. She then ask her father, which is a farmer about her question. Which steps of scientific method does Maria performs?

• Identify the problem and make a conclusion.

• Identify the problem and do background research.

• Identify the problem and conduct an experiment.

• Identify the problem and make a hypothesis.

It is also known as manipulating variable. The condition you change during the investigation.

• Control variable

• Independent variable

• Dependent variable

• Responding variable

To determine whether sugar affects an athlete’s performance at practice, Coach Barron gave half the team doughnuts for breakfast and the other half whole grain cereal. He compared the two groups in terms of endurance and energy. This is an example of:

• Observational Study

• Experimental Study

One group of subjects was given an herbal supplement and another group was given a placebo. After one year, the number of illnesses each group had was compared.

• Observational Study

• Experimental Study

A researcher stood at a school parking lot entrance to see if the color of a car is related to the driver not wearing a seatbelt.

• Observational Study

• Experimental Study

Cardinal rule of naturalistic observation:

• Setting up dependent and independent variables

• Not disturbing participants in the study

• Research and find enough participants

• Getting enough different age groups for study